“2011: A bitter-sweet year for the Ugandan woman” #hwhtw

Lots to celebrate for women in Uganda this year, but more progress to be made, too.

2011: A bitter-sweet year for the Ugandan woman

By Stephen Ssenkaaba

“This is the year that Uganda scored highly on the international scene when Justice Julia Ssebutinde, the calm yet firm former Uganda High Court judge was elected to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It was a tight race that pitted her against highly experienced ICJ judge from Sierra Leone, Abdul Koroma. Sebutinde becomes the third woman elected to the ICJ and the first African woman to assume this position.

“Nationally, women continued to assume influential positions in cabinet, parliament and at different levels of leadership. It was this year that Uganda got its first female speaker of parliament.

“Rebecca Kadaga, also the Kamuli woman MP beat opposition’s Nandala Mafabi to the helm of Uganda’s legislative body. Since her election, the outspoken lawyer has held the parliamentary bull by the horns so far steering the August house into fiery debates. Kadaga’s election seemed not to have gone down well with some legislators; indeed the press has reported unconfirmed attempts to bring her down.

“The Uganda Women Parliamentarians Association and the Uganda Women’s Network came out to rally behind her one of their own and to call for support for Uganda’s most high ranking woman politician.

“Speaking politics, this year recorded an increase in number of women ministers appointed to cabinet from 16 last year to 22…”